


Working It Through: The First Day

by Rjslpets



Series: Choice and Punishment [2]
Category: Nero Wolfe - Rex Stout
Genre: Collars, Other, Punishment
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-05-30
Updated: 2011-07-11
Packaged: 2017-10-19 22:04:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/205701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rjslpets/pseuds/Rjslpets
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Archie begins his punishment for Saul's shooting</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I have always wondered how Nero Wolfe trained Archie Goodwin from a punk off the docks to what we see in the books. This is one possible explanation. I am afraid I have no beta so all mistakes are mine.

Monday morning and I was staring into the mirror trying to convince myself to continue the day. I stared into the mirror and reminded myself that Saul had been shot because I had been careless and I needed a reminder, a strong reminder.  It had been years since I had not followed Wolfe’s orders.  Wolfe often defers to my judgment, especially when women are concerned, but when he does tell me something directly, I should pay attention.  He had told me to arrange our guests so that Robertson was sitting in front of my desk and I had flubbed the setup.  As a result, Saul had been shot.

It was almost 8:15 and I needed to see Wolfe in a few minutes to start my punishment.  As per his rigid schedule, Fritz would have brought his breakfast to his room at 8:00 and he would have finished his glass of orange juice by now and be ready to deal with me.  He never spoke to anyone until he finished his glass of juice.  Eight-fifteen was usually when I would report to Wolfe for morning orders, before he readies himself to go up to the plant room at 9:00 a.m.

Last night, my reminder/punishment had been decided and it would start this morning.  For the next three days, I would give up all control to Wolfe; what I did, said and ate would be dictated by him.  The heavy lead collar that rested in a gold velvet box in Wolfe’s room would remind me constantly of both my transgression and my punishment. 

As an example of the twisted genius I lived with and worked for, the punishment was brilliant.  I have withstood beatings without turning a hair; this was a source of profound irritation to teachers back in Ohio.  Wolfe insisted that I participate in taking responsibility for my punishment, so I could never “abstract myself from the lesson” as he had put it when he first explained the concept to me.  I choose the duration and the severity (although Wolfe could, and did, adjust things) and I, goddam the man, had to begin the punishment as well.  I had to leave my room, walk down the hall to Wolfe’s door, enter, kneel before him and bow my head so he could put that thing on my neck.

I appreciated the necessity of course.  I knew myself and I had to be responsible for whatever was happening to me.  The kneeling was necessary as Wolfe did not feel the need to stand before breakfast, too much physical exertion, so early in the morning might kill him.  Besides he could not comfortably reach my neck, even while standing.  Finally, his sense of aesthetics was pleased by the kneeling and he was well aware that the routine panicked me.  Worse, I had to repeat it before bedtime each night and then again each morning.  Wolfe would not let me sleep in the collars, certainly not the lead one.  “It’s punishment, not torture, Archie.”

I shook my head and pulled myself up.  I had bathed and shaved and was wearing my pants and my undershirt and the dressing gown Wolfe had given me as a Christmas gift last year.  The rest of my clothing would have to wait until the collar was on.  I wasn’t sure about the undershirt as I couldn’t remember if I could wear it under the lead collar, but I figured I could always remove it in Wolfe’s room…and he preferred modesty.

I walked slowly down the hall. I didn’t have to worry about the alarms as they had already been deactivated for Fritz.  I knocked on the door and waited for his “Enter” which came swiftly.  He was sitting in the chair at the table by the window and I realized that I had timed my entrance perfectly.  The glass of orange juice was empty and he had only begun to peruse _The Gazette_.  The box was sitting on the table by the breakfast tray.  I advanced into the room and sank to my knees by his chair.  Normally, I would engage in some banter, but I was too upset by the prospect of the collar to engage in my usual level of levity.

He fastidiously wiped his lips and hands on a napkin, taking his time.  It wasn’t malicious, the delay in responding to me.  He knew me well enough to know that I would need a pause to recover from the effort to get to this point.  He never verbally recognizes my emotional activities, unless I‘m laughing at him.  I appreciated the kindness and the silence, but a part of me was just screaming at him to get on with it.  While I was concentrating on not leaving the room, the brownstone, New York…not sure how far I could have run if I let myself go…Wolfe had calmly opened the box and taken out the collar.

The collar was cold and heavy as he laid it delicately on my shoulders.  It didn’t fit comfortably on the undershirt and he stopped for me to remove it.  I felt his fingers (I always wondered how they could have such delicacy of touch) closing the buckle at the back and then it was finished.  I was locked in and, as always, it settled my stomach and relaxed something in me.  The moments before were always the worst; I did better in any situation once the die was cast, so to speak.

I stood, and shook myself a little to settle the collar and waited for Wolfe to speak.  We had no major cases on at the moment, one of the reasons for the timing of the punishment.  I couldn’t handle a lot of outside work harnessed like this and I certainly couldn’t manage a holster.

“Archie, this morning you will finish up the work for the Marks case in addition to your usual office duties.  I presume that there will need to be a report and invoice created for the client.”  I nodded.  I did have a fair amount of office work for an embezzlement case that we were closing.  We had finished the investigation, but I needed to type up the report and the bill and organize the evidence for the client.  It should take me until Wolfe came down from the plant room.

Assuming that I was taken care of for the morning, I prepared to leave the room.  I was stopped by Wolfe’s voice, “Archie, please head to the kitchen for breakfast before starting your work.  You may eat as much as you need of whatever Fritz has prepared for you.”

I grinned inside as I headed to my room to finish dressing.  Wolfe’s carefully chosen order on breakfast was a direct result of the first time I had undergone this level of restriction.  Even at 23 years old, my appetite had been unable to match Wolfe’s; it had only become a more unequal contest in the intervening years.  Well, I wouldn’t have to worry about either starving to death or massive indigestion, at least until lunchtime.


	2. Office Tasks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally, the next chapter. I apologize for any errors as I working without a beta. And with all honor to Rex Stout.

It was about 10:30 and, following his inviolate schedule, Wolfe was due down from the plant rooms in 30 minutes.  So I had that time to type up the report, set it with the invoice on Wolfe’s desk, put on my jacket and stop shaking.  I carefully reviewed the list and made an executive decision to focus on putting on the jacket and stopping myself from shaking.

It had been almost a decade since I had done something worthy of this level of punishment.  When Wolfe with my input (fat bastard) had developed this method of punishment, he had emphasized the lack of control, but then he never had to wear the damn thing.  It hurt – the edges dug into my skin and the weight felt like Purley Stebbins was pushing down on me with his ham-sized hands.  Doing anything felt like climbing out of quicksand.  I was able to get through my normal morning tasks, dusting, opening the safe, going through the mail.  But when I sat down to type the report and the invoice, I couldn’t find a position that wasn’t painful.  Half way through the invoice, I started shaking.

Let me be clear, it wasn’t the pain and discomfort that started off the shaking.  It was guilt, Saul and my mistakes.  The collar kept that day front and center of my attention, which was of course what the punishment was intended to do, to force my 23-year old punk self to confront my mistake.  But my older self already had the guilt.  That guilt and the pain of the collar combined to start the shaking.

Shaking was the first symptom of the process I called breaking.  I hated breaking.  Wolfe pointed out that it was part of the punishment, to break through my distance and force me to confront my mistake.  It felt like hell.  Once the shaking really took hold, I would sink into a morass of fury and guilt that would always lead to an embarrassing breakdown.  However, if I broke, really broke, then the punishment would end.  Wolfe would take the collar off, and I would put it away and we would go on.  So you’d think I would just give in and break.  Get it over with.  But I couldn’t.  I fought it with everything I had, although right then that didn’t feel like much.

My thoughts kept circling back to the second time I wore this collar.

 


	3. Flashback

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We go back in time with Archie. All honor to Rex Stout

_FLASHBACK_

The collar cutting into my body added to the weight of my anger, both at the punishment and my own stupidity that had gotten me into this situation.  Wolfe and I were on the first day of my punishment.  It was a significant one for pushing to a physical confrontation a discussion that didn’t need to go that far.  Wolfe disapproved of physical violence, both because it was crude and because the level of exertion required terrified him.  To compound my fault, Wolfe had had to extract me from the boys in blue who had locked me up, being under the impression that I was threat to the decency and quiet of the citizens of New York.

Wolfe had sent Saul to pick me up and Saul had treated me to a considerable lecture on the way uptown.  As a result, I had entered the brownstone spoiling for a fight.  Wolfe didn’t oblige me.  “I expect your offer on my desk when I come down from the plant rooms tomorrow,” was all he said before heading into dinner.  Wolfe does not allow business to be discussed at dinner and my behavior and punishment was business.  So no lecture and no fight.

The first day of the punishment as I was kneeling and adjusting to that damn collar, Wolfe dropped the bombshell – no talking for the entire length of the punishment unless necessitated by business.

My mouth has always been one of my most powerful weapons; wedded to my aw-shucks looks, it had gotten me out of, and in to, some very tight situations.  In my relations with Wolfe, even in that early stage, my wit (flummery according to Wolfe) got me breathing space. I was a 23-year-old high school graduate living with a European aristocrat (although that fact wasn’t confirmed until years later) with a grasp of culture that exceeded anyone I had ever known in Ohio.  I ate at his table and slept under his roof, lived my life by his rigid schedule.  At that time, even my bedroom furniture was Wolfe’s. 

My battle of wits with Wolfe, the fact that I could even battle him, was a touchstone for me.  Wolfe’s personality was as outsized as his yellow silk pajamas.  There was a reason that he could make murderers and Inspector Cramer listen to him and obey his wishes.  Keeping room in that house for my personality was a fulltime job.  Wolfe was one of the most formative influences for the man I grew into, but it was a constant battle to maintain my independence from the man who paid me, fed me, and ordered me about on a daily basis.

By depriving me of my voice, Wolfe had made it almost impossible for me maintain any distance.  I was forced to confront not only my own anger, but his.  Of course, that made my anger at myself only greater as even then I prized Wolfe’s opinion of me.  All of this is probably why I wound up on the office floor, later that morning, leaning against Wolfe’s leg, shaking and crying silently.  He had taken off the collar as was standard procedure when I broke.  Other than that, and allowing me the use of his leg (which might just have been his dislike of physical movement), he said nothing and continued to read his book as if I wasn’t there.

I learned to think after that and keep physical violence to a minimum.  Or at least to where Wolfe wouldn’t hear of it.  As brutal as that day was, it did cure me of the hair trigger fight reaction I had learned on the docks.  It also taught me that Wolfe can break a man without lifting a finger, or saying a word.

 

End Flashback


	4. After the Morning Plant Session

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The day goes on and gets worst.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for the delay in posting. All the characters belong to Rex Stout and all the mistakes are mine. Not beta'd unfortunately.

By 10:30, I had managed to complete my two self-assigned tasks.  I wasn’t shaking and I had my jacket on.  I had not completed the Wolfe-assigned tasks of completing the report and invoice, but I would take what I could get.  The jacket was essential as Wolfe insisted on full dress in the brownstone, at least outside the bedrooms.  If Wolfe came down to find me in shirtsleeves, I would never hear the end of it.

Jacketed and finally calm, I listened to the elevator coming down from the plant rooms.  But Wolfe didn’t come to the office; instead he headed to the kitchen.  It was not unusual for him to consult with Fritz in the morning about lunch and dinner before working.  Actually, food always comes before work for Wolfe.  I often reminded myself to be grateful for the man’s gluttony; it kept me employed.  Only Wolfe’s need to fund his appetite and his orchids led him to work.

But, as he strode back into the office, I realized that I had forgotten a significant issue.  I could see the moment he strode into the office and headed to his desk that he was hot about something.  Wolfe is not an expressive man, but my years with him had taught me to interpret every small motion.  The subtle tension in his upper body and lack of relaxation in his posture as he settled into his favorite chair all signaled that he was seriously angry. 

“Archie, I have just spoken to Fritz and he said that you ate almost no breakfast this morning.  Far less than your usual repast.  I believe I directed you to consume sufficient sustenance.”

Immediately the shaking started again.  I had forgotten about breakfast in trying to deal with the rest of the morning.  Still adjusting to the collar, I had barely eaten anything, less than I usually do, certainly less than Wolfe ever does.  After all, my hearty lunch often seems to Wolfe like a light snack. 

Food is primary to Wolfe.  Even when I have come in with crucial evidence in the middle of a case, his first question was almost invariably if I have eaten.  If it turned out that I had skipped a meal, Wolfe would always reprimand me.  He regarded missing a meal as a form of torture that should be banned by the Supreme Court as cruel and unusual punishment.  Just looking at his seventh of ton, you know that the word “diet” was not in his vocabulary, except in reference to plant food.  And I knew what he was going to say before the words left his mouth.

“Obviously, you are allowing your emotional state to overwhelm your common sense.  To work without adequate nourishment is the decision of a fool.  The punishment is sufficient in and of itself; I will not tolerate any additional self-flagellation.  Since you cannot be trusted to act sensibly, I will act for you.”

The absence of the package for the client prompted yet another round of comments about how my lack of food had obviously left me too weak and confused to finish my work.  This round ended with Wolfe saying, “Archie, the point of this punishment is not to make amends.  I am well aware that you have developed sufficient maturity to understand your mistake and to correct yourself.  I have agreed to this because you needed to release your understandable guilt in some kind of penance.  However, I will not permit you to injure yourself.  You will go upstairs and rest until lunch.”

Shaking, I went up to my room.


End file.
